Sir, - I refer to Tom Shortt's article (Education and Living, May 11th). It addresses the fate of Leaving Certificate art projects once they have been examined. It is with utter consternation that I learned that the students' art work ends up in a Department of Education bonfire in Athlone.
Apart from finding, as Mr Shortt does, that this practice is morally repugnant and educationally destructive, my immediate practical concern is that my son's main subject in this year's Leaving Cert. is art and his future career may depend on the result. What guarantee has he that his art and craft pieces do not get mixed with those of another student or worse still get lost after all his work and my expense in preparing for the exam.
I recall the incident a few years ago when Leaving Cert. art work ended up in a bog having fallen off a lorry! And also the scandal last year of the correction of English papers with examiners giving average marks to students, irrespective of the students' real worth.
I have spoken to the Office of the Ombudsman for advice and I was told to write first to the Department of Education and, should I not be satisfied with their reply, to submit the matter to the Ombudsman and he would take it up from there. I have done this and may I exhort all students and parents concerned to do likewise.
The Department told me by phone that only certain categories of project work are incinerated. However, I think it is an act of arrant vandalism to mete out such terminal treatment to anybody's creative work, be it in an examination or any other context. - Yours, etc. Eoghan O' Loingsigh,
Dundrum, Dublin 16.